Summary
Contents
Subject index
This is an accessible, enlivening introductory book that provides a shot in the arm for all those who maintain the relevance of sociology for understanding the modern world. Charles Turner provides a wealth of concrete examples which demonstrate what a sociological perspective can do to unpack and illuminate everyday life. The book allows students to understand sociological theory from the inside. It moves effortlessly beyond the mere parade of great names and core ideas to introduce concepts that can be used to understand the social world in which we live, where this world has come from and where it might be heading. Original, informed, and deftly written with the needs of students in mind this book is an antidote to arid theorizing and the dull recitation of the grand sociological tradition.
Cynicism and Scepticism: Two Intellectual Styles in Sociology
Cynicism and Scepticism: Two Intellectual Styles in Sociology
Introduction
There is something human and moving in the pursuit of the ‘truth’ about society, and in the record of striving and failure that is the history of that pursuit. So far we have read some classics of sociological theory from the point of view of the categories they deploy, the metaphors they use, the descriptions their work generates, and even the diagrams they use, and we have seen some of the limits of theorising that a discussion of them can reveal. This chapter raises some broader questions about intellectual style in sociology; the next asks whether sociological theory has anything to tell us about that old problem, the art of ...
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